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Message: <blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5273160" data-attributes="member: 2067">The question that you should ask yourself isn't "Why can't my Death spell work?" it is "Why is this monster or NPC an elite or a boss?" Elites and bosses are unique creatures in the game-world, legendary beings of power beyond that which mortals can gather. They are legendary and mighty, unique, with unique powers and qualities. Do you expect to be able to slay Achilles or Odysseus with the same ease that you can slaughter most of the unnamed Achaen masses? Do you think that Merlin should be as easy to kill as any minor hedge mage? The corpses of orcs may lay at your feet, but that doesn't mean that you can execute the Great Red Wyrm Thardintazl with the same ease. Why should all monsters be equal? Certainly, that Thardintazl can slaughter entire villages of dirt farmers, but she probably can't oppose four stout heroes. FFZ also has two specific things which reinforce this reasoning. The first is that it is explicitly narrative, so if it makes the story better to keep these creatures alive, they should stay alive, and that should be explained somehow. The second is that it's very in-genre. The FF games are filled with examples of "can't kill it in one hit, sorry!" I believe they do this for the same narrative reason: makes a bad story.  I originally shied away from putting those in, but genre brought be back, and story gave me a reason to keep them, and the logic of "heroic monsters vs. standard monsters" helped me wrap my mind around it so well, that I even would employ it in D&D. If a PC fighter is distinctly different from a random dirt farmer, I don't see why the Great Red Wyrm can't be distinctly different from a random orc.If a monster or NPC is important, it should be important because it's somehow narratively significant. It has done things that other adversaries of the PC's don't or can't do. Whatever that significance is, can also grant it all sorts of abilities to resist a quick slaughter.The same logic that gives those creatures boatloads of HP and APs is the same logic that can simply give them immunity. Though I like the AP solution, too.</blockquote>

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